Roy Rogers

Biographie

Acclaimed for his signature bottleneck slide guitar playing, Roy Rogers has worked with the cream of the modern blues scene since first emerging in the late 1970s, and is widely recognised as an all-round master of the Delta sound.

First picking up the guitar at age 12, he started out covering Chuck Berry and Little Richard hits in high school rock & roll bands, but when his brother brought home a Robert Johnson anthology album, Rogers quickly developed a love for early blues. The American folk boom and the British invasion bands of the mid-1960s helped further expand his knowledge of the genre, and he saw the likes of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters at the legendary Fillmore Club in San Francisco.

Releasing his first album with harmonica player David Burgin in 1978, the Californian played on the film soundtrack of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' before building his reputation with debut solo album 'Chops Not Chaps' in 1986. Follow-up 'Slidewinder' featured guest appearances from Allen Toussaint and John Lee Hooker, and he went on to join Hooker's Coast to Coast Band and produced a string of his albums, including the Grammy-winning 'The Healer' and the movie soundtrack 'The Hot Spot', which also featured Miles Davis. His slide guitar playing became revered and his signature sound grew into more funky boogies on albums 'Slide of Hand', 'Rhythm and Groove' and 'Pleasure and Pain', and as a producer he worked with Bonnie Raitt, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Canned Heat ad Santana.

Over the years Rogers has also collaborated on albums with singer-songwriter Norton Buffalo, Van Morrison's daughter Shana and The Doors' co-founder Ray Manzarek. In 2015 he released his 13th solo album 'Into the Wild Blue'.

Artist biography compiled by BDS/West 10. All rights reserved